Tarot

Painting Tarot

The thing that’s closest in design to tarot cards is paper currency. Ironically, the currency tends to be more mysterious and surreal.

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I prefer color irony to color harmony, but both have their place. This is a great way to evoke an emotional response from an image.

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Surrealism has a place in this project, but it’s important to understand what I mean by that. I’m thinking of displaced imagery and not melting clocks.

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Some of these images will be disturbing. I won’t be using nudity or gore, but I will be using themes that are intended to evoke an emotional response. This isn’t going to be a happy feel-good deck. It isn’t going to be scary and spooky either. It’s going to be real, thought provoking, and epic. I’m not censoring myself, and I’m not trying to please everyone.

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Working a lot of symbolism into such small images will require a style that’s fairly plain, and very detailed. The style will be careful and subtle, but not realism.

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I’ve already made a lot of big decisions about the images that I can’t discuss in a public forum. Many of the characters and specific designs have already been decided.

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These cards will be quite a bit more complex than most tarot cards. I’m using multiple narratives, each spanning several cards, often overlapping.